In Bihar poll run-up,Sonia joins PM in Nitish-bashing

She told election rallies at minority-dominated Kishanganj and Motihari that the Centre does not know what happened to the funds provided to the state.

On his part,Nitish Kumar,addressing an election rally in Paroo,accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of trying to shift the blame on the state government for the “failure” of central agencies on the fund utilisation issue.

“It is unfortunate that a person like Singh is placing distorted facts before the people and seeking to blame the NDA government for the failure of central agencies in the utilisation of central assistance,” he said.

Flaying the Nitish government for projecting a secular image,Sonia Gandhi said,”It just reflected the politics of opportunism. A pecular type of alliance government runs Bihar. While its leader claims to have a secular image,he has an alliance with BJP which is dead opposed to secularism.”

Gandhi slammed the state government for not giving land to establish a centre of the Aligarh Muslim University in Kishanganj despite clearances by the Centre.

“You have talked about Aligarh Muslim University.

Everything is clear from the Centre but the government here is not giving land. It has not given the land so far,” she said.

“There are difference in the development claim of the Nitish Kumar government,” she alleged and wondered how many hours people had electricity in a day and what happened to the funds earmarked for education and healthcare.

She also questioned why no new industry was coming up in the state.

“Students have to go outside the state for better education,opportunity and also for ensuring treatment of diseases,” she said.

Hitting back at the Centre,Kumar said,”The Prime Minister should correct his statement that the special provision of Rs 1,000 crore every year was made from 2004. It was actually made from 2002 and Congress has nothing to take credit for this,” he said.

Gandhi accused the Bihar government of not utilising central funds under the multi-sectoral development schemes for Muslim-dominated areas in the state.

In Motihari,she said there was corruption in schemes including the flagship rural employment guarantee programme – MGNREGA.

“You should ask the state government why it has failed to establish a single sugar mill in the state and what it has done for the poor and the unemployed,” she said.

Without naming RJD and NDA,Gandhi said people had seen successive governments in the past 20 years and their agenda for development.

Claiming that only the Congress can bring Bihar back to the path of development by providing a secular government,she regretted the last 20 years saw several parties coming to power,but none had any vision for development.

She urged people to vote for Congress and bring a revolution of development.

Referring to the Bihar chief minister’s objections to the visit of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to the state for campaigning,she said people knew that Kumar had not parted company with the NDA.

Kumar had not resigned from the Vajpayee ministry even after what had happened in Gujarat,she pointed out.

She said the Congress had faced ups and downs on several occasions in the past,but had never compromised with its principles and the ideology of secularism.